Wavering

What it means

Schwankend is a German performance marking and calls for an unsteady, changeable performance. The music is to find no firm footing: tempo, dynamics, or expression waver, as if the direction were uncertain.

The marking concerns expression. Which means carries the wavering results from the context — often a freer tempo with stretchings and accelerations, occasionally also dynamic changes or an unsettled sound.

Schwankend differs from zögernd, which means a holding back, through direction: hesitation holds still, wavering swings back and forth. It differs from inquieto, which designates inner unrest, through uncertainty — unrest can be goal-directed, wavering cannot. The phrase “to and fro” describes the same image.

In the notation

The word stands above the staff at the point from which it applies, in German-language editions in place of an Italian marking. It often stands over sections with changing rhythms, metre changes, or harmonically indeterminate turns.

Musical use

The designation is used in sections depicting uncertainty, doubt, or indecision: in songs with a corresponding text, in transitions between two parts, in character pieces of a searching expression. In nineteenth-century music it belongs among the words with which composers name states of mind precisely.

The instruction describes an uncertain, wavering character, often with free agogics, changing tempos, and irregular accentuation. It stands in the music of late Romanticism and the twentieth century, where uncertainty or intoxication are to be depicted. The performance should waver without falling apart: the ensemble must coordinate closely despite the freedom. Often tempo changes within a single bar are necessary for this. The ensemble must coordinate precisely in doing so.

Performance practice

Shape the wavering deliberately and plan it: an arbitrary wobble sounds imprecise, a planned one seems expressive. Fix where to stretch and where to press forward. Keep an inner pulse nonetheless, to which you return. And coordinate within the ensemble — depicting uncertainty demands great certainty in ensemble playing.